March 23, 1999: Zhang-Mu, Tibet
A thick brown pall hangs in the air, as the wind picks up the dust from Zhang-Mu's
streets. We're on the border between Nepal and Tibet, a no man's land presided over
by Chinese customs officials and immigration officers in smart black and green suits.
Local Tibetans swarm around us as we stuff our stamped passports into our
backpacks. "Change money?" they ask, knowing we'll have to change our Nepalese
rupees into Yuan, the standard Chinese currency.

Now that the entire team has made it across the border,
little can stop us from reaching our destination:
Everest Base Camp at 17,000 feet.
Only landslides, avalanches, altitude sickness, or vehicle breakdowns on the road could slow us
from getting there within the week, explains Eric Simonson,
our expedition leader. Unlike Everest on the south side, from the north we can literally drive up to the mountain's
base. It will take at least five days to adjust our bodies to the increasing altitude as we approach camp.

The border town of Zhang-Mu is the major spot to find provisions.

Two nights are spent in Zhang-Mu, a Chinese/Tibetan border town that hangs on a steep mountainside. Time is
spent ducking into the many street-side shops that luckily have last-minute staples and not much more. We're
waiting for all our gear to come across the border. Simonson estimates we have a grand total of 15,000 pounds
of food, tents, mountaineering hardware and ropes, camping and kitchen equipment, fuel, film equipment, and
personal duffels. The gear fills up four, one-and-a-half-ton Chinese trucks, everything our team of 25
climbers and filmmakers could possibly need over the next two months. "We're really climbing a mountain
of duffel bags," jokes British climber Graham Hoyland,
who is here, for a second time, to search high on Everest for his great uncle's camera, which was loaned to
George Mallory on his summit day. Neither Mallory nor the camera made it back down, and we're here to try
to find out what happened to such a talented climber, who was so close to reaching the summit of Everest
29 years before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's first ascent in 1953.

March 25: Zhang-Mu to Nyelam
As we leave Zhang-Mu, our driver stops the bus and honks, unwilling to move forward. It's obvious something
is in the street, as people watch from their doors to see what the driver will do. He finally gets out of
the bus to shoo away the culprits: four pigeons oblivious to the noise, pecking at something in the road.
"It's a good sign," says Hoyland. He knows that the drive ahead warrants thoughtful driving. Soon the
left side of the road drops thousands of feet down to the gorge of the Bhote Kosi river below. Simonson
comments that this is a heavy fault region, the tectonic plates
of the Tibetan Plateau and the Indian
subcontinent butting heads beneath us. Mud gives way to snow and we climb up and out of the deeply cut
valley toward the craggy Himalayan peaks that beckon in the distance. It's clear we're finally in the
mountains.

A crowd of Tibetan women eye the LCD screen of the digital camera with interest.

In the village of Nyelam, half-Tibetan and half-Chinese in architecture, yaks pick through trash in
the street. Tinny disco music blasts from a shop door as we wander the muddy alleyways testing our
lungs in the thin air. A group of Tibetan teenagers crowd around as I hand them the digital camera
to view themselves in. These are the days where the LCD screen is finally replacing the Polaroid.

In the morning after breakfast, we all head up into the hills to get some exercise and a 2,000-foot
gain in altitude. The snow begins to blow hard and oddly we welcome it, knowing this is the first step
in the 'hardening' process that one has to go through to endure Everest. Some team members joke about
how quickly one forgets the misery and cold of high places. But now that we're here, we all know what
drives us back to the mountains—the challenge, the beauty, and the self-discovery. Several burning
questions linger in particular: Will we find any evidence of Mallory or Irvine on the mountain? Is it
possible that we might find some clues as to what happened to them on their fateful summit day in
June of 1924?

March 27: Nyelam - Tingri
Driving further east, the brown hills and open expanses of Tibet take shape. We pass by small
Tibetan villages with the ruins of monasteries standing in silent testimony to the Cultural
Revolution. Brown fields are being cultivated for potatoes and barley. It's hard to imagine
anything can grow in this parched cold climate. As we climb up toward the Son La Pass, the
top of the watershed, we're finally on the Tibetan Plateau: Brown hills in the distance take
shape in the cold, dusty wind. You have to carefully choose in which direction you gaze, avoiding
the biting gusts that sting eyes and ears.

The dusty town of Tingri is one of the last stops en route to Base Camp.

In Tingri, we hide out in a tarp-covered wood frame shed, ducking from the 30-40 mph blasts of
dust-laden wind. We've reached 14,270 feet at this desolate truckstop on the friendship Highway
that links Lhasa with western Tibet. Yak bells tinkle behind the plastic walls of our shed, and
prayer flags flutter horizontally toward the southeast, where Everest peeks behind a brown hill
in the distance. Raven-like birds called choughs soar on the updrafts, scavenging for scraps of
food thrown out behind the low-slung, white-washed Tibetan houses. To the south lies Cho Oyu,
the world's sixth-highest peak. Both mountains loom beyond the flat expanse of the Tibetan Plateau.
Everest's characteristic plume cloud streams boldly to the east, a definite sign of high winds aloft.
Here, the wind has been turned on high, blasting across the high plateau, with fine dust settling in
our eyes, noses, and deep within our ears.

March 29: Tingri - Base Camp
After two days of acclimatizing in Tingri, we're sufficiently anxious to get to Base Camp. Being on the
move has been good for us to adjust to the rhythms of the weather. Days are windy and cold, and evenings
are the time to be deep within your sleeping bag, staying warm in the still night air. We leave early in
the morning for the last leg of our journey, a six-hour drive up over the Pang La pass to Base Camp.
Views on the pass are breathtaking, with Everest and Cho Oyu demanding attention. It's all finally coming
together. After months of preparation for the trip, Everest stands before us and the air is still. There
is no plume cloud streaming from the summit, not a cloud in sight, or a single puff of wind. Today would
be a good summit day.

The North Side Base Camp sits on a terminal moraine; Everest looms behind.

This is a world where everything exists on a grand scale. Dry river basins stretch a mile across, glacial
moraines displace billions of small stones, huge boulders hang on the sides of the moraines, the sky is
a deep blue, and the nearby mountains are the highest in the world. As we drive up toward camp past
small villages starting their spring barley plantings, there is a deep sense in the team that this
is an auspicious moment. We're finally here, the first team to arrive, the day is calm, and the
mountain stands before us ready to be climbed.